The Prop 8 battle is heating up in California. It’s predecessor, Prop 22, passed in 2000 with the support of a commanding 61% of California voters. Earlier this year those voters’ will was overturned by a narrow 4-3 majority of the California Supreme Court. The only way to overturn the Supreme Court’s convoluted opinion is by amending the California constitution. Enter Prop 8, on the ballot this November.
A similar measure is on the ballot in Florida. But if you live in say, Kansas, Maine or Georgia, your question may well be, “Who cares?” The answer: as California goes, so goes the nation. With a population nearing 40,000,000, it is not just school books that are edited with California in mind. Marriages performed in Massachusetts are relatively few, but when California joins Massachusetts, every state in the union will be visited by gay couples demanding recognition of their legal status. And the implications go way beyond mere marriage per se.
“But what about equal rights,” you say, “I’m not a gay-basher or a homophobe. Gay couples should be allowed to marry.” The term “homophobia” was created for propaganda purposes to suggest irrational fear. Yet, when it comes to homosexuality, a growing number of research studies suggest that fears triggered at the prospect of legally recognizing “gay marriage” are completely rational. Consider:
“According to Jeffrey Satinover, M. D., a psychiatrist and member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, there is no more important reason to prohibit same-sex marriage than the effects it would have on children. And he doesn’t say this for sentimental reasons. He says it because it’s sound science.
“In every area of life, cognitive, emotional, social, developmental … at every phase of the life cycle … social evidence shows that there are measurable effects when children lack either a mother or a father. … The evidence is overwhelming. Mountains of evidence, collected over decades, show that children need both mothers and fathers.”
The Family Research Council cites more than fifteen research studies for the proposition that parents who follow the homosexual “lifestyle” place their children at a significant disadvantage in comparison to children of heterosexual couples. The studies include research by the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. Department of Justice, University of Chicago and peer-reviewed publications appearing in the Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of Social Services Research, and the American Sociological Review. The issue is the welfare of children: not what adults “want,” but what children need.
Some years back, Satinover served as an expert witness against same-sex adoption in the Florida case, Amer v. Johnson. “The state of Florida wanted me to argue that the reason the ban should be upheld was because homosexuals made bad parents and I refused to do that. I said in my testimony, if two homosexuals wanted to adopt a child, I would have no objection to it if one of them was a man and one of them was a woman.
“What mattered more was that the man and woman, homosexual or not, were willing to act contrary to their own desires in making the sacrifice to provide a stable home for the child. “What counts is the willingness to put one’s own desires in second place. It has nothing to do with homosexuality, per se; it’s the fact that if two men or two women insist on adopting a child, they thereby prove by their insistence that they know nothing about the needs of the child and are so selfish and ignorant of what children need, that by their very insistence they prove themselves unfit to be parents.”
The question of stability looms large for children in such settings. I would be among the last to deny gay men and lesbians the right to consort with adult partners of their choice. But when children enter the picture, it’s different story entirely. Study after study reveals that homosexual unions, including those that are regarded as committed, are notoriously unstable and monogamous relationships are rare. Compared to traditional marriages, the differences are stunning, according to Timothy J. Dailey of Wheaton College.
In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that “few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners. …
A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with five hundred or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners. …
Lest anyone suffer the illusion that any equivalency between the sexual practices of homosexual relationships and traditional marriage exists, the statistics regarding sexual fidelity within marriage are revealing: In Sex in America, called by the New York Times “the most important study of American sexual behavior since the Kinsey reports,” Robert T. Michael et al. report that 90 percent of wives and 75 percent of husbands claim never to have had extramarital sex. …
While the rate of fidelity within marriage cited by these studies remains far from ideal, there is a magnum order of difference between the negligible lifetime fidelity rate cited for homosexuals and the 75 to 90 percent cited for married couples. This indicates that even “committed” homosexual relationships display a fundamental incapacity for the faithfulness and commitment that is axiomatic to the institution of marriage.
The implications for children are enormous. Add to that dramatically shorter than average life expectancies among homosexuals: among gay men, life expectancies are eight to twenty years shorter than among straight men. The problem goes way beyond HIV/AIDS. Leaving a child orphaned, with a “parent” unrelated to him or her, is a strong possibility. As discussed further below, this in itself is a marker for violence against children.
When the Catholic Church referred recently to homosexual unions as “disordered,” all-you-know-what broke loose. But the human body itself recognizes there is something happening that it was not meant to be. The Church is not needed to verify that. Science gives the same advice:
“Even from an immunological point of view, the body itself considers homosexual acts to be disordered. For instance, there are substances in seminal fluid called “immuno-regulatory macromolecules” that send out “signals” that are only understood by the female body, which will then permit the “two in one flesh” intimacy required for human reproduction. When deposited elsewhere, these signals are not only misunderstood, but cause sperm to fuse with whatever somatic body cell they encounter. This fusing is what often results in the development of cancerous malignancies. (”Sexual Behavior and Increased Anal Cancer”, Immunology and Cell Biology 75 (1977); 181-183)
Greg Quinlan, a male nurse and former homosexual, testified before the Ohio legislature in 2003 that, “As a nurse, I watched 100 of my friends and acquaintances die of AIDS and AIDS related illnesses. After that, I stopped counting.” The potential (and largely unnecessary) trauma for children living in such situations commands our consideration.
Again, adults are entitled to engage in whatever sexual behavior they choose, as long as the welfare of children is not compromised. Legalizing homosexual marriage does just that. Today’s society expects parents not to subject their children to second hand smoke, because it has been shown to be harmful; to smoke in an enclosed area where others are present is no longer socially acceptable — or in many places, even legal. Historically, culturally, biologically, marriage is ultimately about children. Should we not expect parents to put the needs of children ahead of personal sexual preferences and rotating partners, whether those are of the same or opposite sex?
Another risk to children: violence. According to both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the University of Chicago Medical Center, children in homes where there is one or more unrelated adults are, astonishingly, fifty times more likely to die of abuse, whether the unrelated adult is a mother’s boyfriend or the father’s. There was no increase in child abuse fatalities in homes where children lived with a single parent.
“Even though many of the people who are fueling this push for legalized gay marriage are acting out of genuine compassion, their sentiments are sadly misdirected. “All they can think about are the rights of the adults,” Satinover said, “and the kids can go hang themselves.”
Justice Marvin Baxter of the California Supreme Court, dissenting from 4-3 decision to overturn Prop 22, wrote:
“Only one other American state recognizes the right the majority announces today. So far, Congress and virtually every other court to consider the issue, has rejected it. Nothing in our Constitution, express or implicit, compels the majority’s startling conclusion that the age-old understanding of marriage –an understanding recently confirmed by an initiative law — is no longer valid. … I cannot join this exercise in legal jujitsu, by which the Legislature’s own weight is used against it to create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the People’s will, and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference. … The majority … simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice.” (pps 1,7, Baxter dissent, In re Marriage Cases, May 15, 2008.)
This is the tip of the iceberg, folks. The arguments favoring passage of the California and Florida “Protect Marriage” propositions are powerful.
{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
Johannes Steiner 08.13.08 at 7:55 pm
As a real hardcore, J.S Mills style libertarian, I am generally as Satinover says, overly concerned with the rights of the adults. I have been, however, entirely ignorant of all of this information. This is drastically affecting my views on the gay marriage controversy. Thanks for the post.
Thomas Forguson 08.13.08 at 9:24 pm
I am disappointed in you. I support both gays rights and polygamists rights. You quoted The Family Research Council about your postition. That’s equivalent to quoting Flora Jessop on the FLDS. Both the Family Research Council rely on unsupported propaganda.
able eddy 08.13.08 at 9:37 pm
Anyone who puts the needs of children second in line behind gay “rights” should hang their head in shame. Children are defenseless. It is obvious they need defending, so where are you when they need you, Thomas?
Joey 08.13.08 at 9:49 pm
I’m concerned about the rights polygamists though. It would be in the interest of polygamists that marriage be less rigidly defined. As it stands, the “institution of marriage” is not what it used to be. The level of divorce in this country is more than 50% I’ve heard. With high levels of divorce and illegitimacy (the fruit of a sexually permissive culture) comes larger numbers of children in single parent/disrupted households, who are typically at a disadvantage in life. It could be that polygamy is actually a natural response to this weariness/laziness/ineffectiveness in upholding the traditional two-parent household, especially two-parent households where BOTH parents are the biological parents of all their children. I don’t think polygamist households have as many problems (illegitmacy, divorce) along those lines. I may be wrong.
All that to say, I think people are better off arguing against same-sex households with children for the reasons you pointed out, than they are invoking vague, high-sounding, arguments regarding the sanctity of marriage, which only makes them sound like hypocrites.
appleblossom 08.13.08 at 10:18 pm
It is obvious from the reports of the mental health professionals who observed the treatment of the CPS-kidnapped FLDS mothers and children that the FLDS mothers were superb parents.
It is unfortunate, and I believe mistaken, for them and for their friends to be drawn into advocating for an inherently unnatural relationship — when polygamy, though it irks the majority to admit it, is inherently natural. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. The children are by and large well served in at least that particular polygamous society. They are not well served in homosexual settings.
Doran Williams 08.13.08 at 11:10 pm
I’m not persuaded. Yet.
I’ve practiced family law for a long time; I’ve represented female partners in their adoption of children. Strangely enough, given the overall reactionary response of so many Texans to so many issues, adoption by lesbians has not been a cause celebre. Courts are almost all in favor of seeing children adopted, even if by lesbians, rather than leaving the kis to grow up in some kind of institutional setting. I’ve been involved in same sex adoptions of kids who may never have been adopted had they had to wait for a male-female couple to do it. And most of those adoptions have been extraordinarily good for the kids. I have also been involved with male-female parents whose adoptions of children turned out to be disasters for the kids and the parents.
Sure, it would be good for most kids to have a father and a mother. So long as the father is not abusive and the mother doesn’t drink to excess, and on and on.
And sure, it would be best to have two parents; but look at how many single parents there are, with no prospects. Where is the ground-swell of support for programs to help them? Hiding behind a homophobic initiative against same sex adoptions, maybe?
What happens if one parent dies? Should we require the other to get back in the singles scene and get married again, very soon?
Bottom line for me: If the people who do the home studies and criminal checks and all those other things to assure that an adoption will be by good people, then I don’t care whether it is by gays, lesbians, or straights. Any adoption by good people, same sex or not, is better for the adopted kid than none at all.
P.S. That adoption I mentioned that turned bad: It was an adoption out by Texas CPS. Wouldn’t you just know it……
kbp 08.13.08 at 11:47 pm
Well, the topics I wished to address were covered by others, and in a manner much better than I could have.
So… I’ll just let you know that some from Kansas “care” about more than just the price of wheat or how Toto is doing.
Gravitas 08.14.08 at 1:56 am
Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. Every rule has them; the exception makes the rule. But statistics heavily favor two bio parents. And no, of course that is not always possible. Yes, single parents can do a remarkable job of parenting — and sometimes stepparents are remarkable.
But that does not mean that the law should encourage the destruction of the time-tested best form of family available to mankind. Children need male and female role models; they need a stable family.
Combine the statistically most-stable families with the male-female parenting model and you have, presto, married, heterosexual biological parents. Destroy that model as the dominant norm, and you destroy society. Historically, that pattern has been repeated many times. How long does it take us to learn what works and what does not?
Doran Williams 08.14.08 at 7:40 am
I think we need to know this: State by State, if single parent adoptions, or same gender adoptions had been prohibited over the past 10 years, what would have been the effect on the adoption rate? That is, how many fewer children would have been adopted in that period?
And if single parent and same gender adoptions are prohibited in the future, what will be the reasonably predictable effect on adoptions? Will more or fewer children be adopted?
Even if you think same gender and single parent adoptions are not the best, surely you would want to know the effect of prohibiting those adoptions. Has anyone done this work?
On a related matter, I’m VERY INTERESTED in what the California Supreme Court, both the majority and the dissenters, had to say about marriage. Justice Baxter is quoted above as referring to the “age-old understanding of marriage,” and to the “age-old definition of marriage.” Will appreciate it if Margot will provide some additional quotes on this from the majority and minority opinions. Thank you.
Chino Blanco 08.14.08 at 8:22 am
This Thursday, August 14th, from 5:30 p.m - 8:30 p.m. at 2020 Main Street, Irvine, California:
ACTION ALERT: Tell the Right-Wing Consultants NO to Prop 8!
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/08/13/action-alert-tell-the-right-wing-consultants-no-to-prop-8/
marttie 08.14.08 at 9:34 am
I have a question What does being unrelated to a parent have to do with it? Is that saying adoptive parents are as bad? I really believe that If you really care about a child it doesn’t matter if your blood related or not. I heartily agree that children need a mother and a father and adopting parents should put the child first. The focus should be on good parents and enviroments for the children not weather they are homosexuals or not. that should not even be an issue in child adoption. If you are counting how many homosexuals have adopted children then you are not seeing the whole picture.
April 38 08.14.08 at 9:36 am
I don’t think this post raised any objections to single parent adoptions. How does that become relevant?
TxBluesMan 08.14.08 at 9:47 am
I’m not for gay marriages (I don’t have a problem with civil unions, so it’s more of a semantics issue for me).
Having said that, Doran is absolutely correct. The child would be better off with two lesbian or gay parents than in a foster home or institution.
That does not mean that I would agree that underage marriage in polygamous relationships are either appropriate or legal…
Margot Schulzke 08.14.08 at 10:00 am
The studies report on “unrelated” adults. That appears to assume– and I will do what I can to confirm that, one way or the other–that this refers to those who have either no biological or legally adoptive relationship, i. e., a parent’s live-in partner or a stepparent. However, when they discuss “related” or “unrelated”, in the studies quoted, it appears legally adoptive parents are considered to be related.
Obviously, the ideal home is not always going to be an option. But it is what the law should encourage and support to the degree possible. Whether homosexual or not, stable homes are necessary for children. Heterosexual adoptive parents stay together far longer than homosexual partners do, including those who claim “long-term” relationships. The latter settings are notoriously unstable. We’ll do another post giving more info on that.
The focus is indeed on good parents and environments for the children — whether they are homosexuals or not. But statistics indicate that the best chances for children are in traditional, heterosexual-parented families.
“Complementarity” is a term used by psychologists in regard to parenting. It refers to the need of children to have parents of opposite sexes. There are differences, many of them subtle, between a female parent, a mother, and a father, that even infants perceive. Children need the two opposite role models to develop fully and to have the option to model themselves freely.
Hence the plaintive question famously asked by Rosie O’Donnell’s son, “Why can’t I have a daddy?” Her reply was to the effect that it was because she was “the kind of mommie who wants another mommie.”
Again, it is children’s needs, not adults’ wants, that must come first for the sake of the individual child and for the future of society.
More to come.
Evan 08.14.08 at 10:06 am
My grandfather died when my mother was an infant. She recalls someone commenting to her that she could not have missed him, because she never knew him. She said her reply was, “I have missed him every day of my life.”
Thomas Forguson 08.14.08 at 10:56 am
Able eddy you are basing your oponion on unfounded prejudices. you are who should be ashamed.
kbp 08.14.08 at 11:50 am
The child would be better off with two lesbian or gay parents than in a foster home or institution.
That does not mean that I would agree that underage marriage in polygamous relationships are either appropriate or legal…
Did Lawrence and his purported spouse apply to adopt any of the YFZ children?
Would a child would be better off with two lesbian or gay parents than a parent that teaches the beliefs of polygamy?
…or has participated in some way in an under age marriage in the past?
able eddy 08.14.08 at 12:20 pm
To each their own, Thomas? If we are talking about adults, that is their business. But for the state to give license to adoptions by homosexual parents is not in children’s interest. Check out the percentages of pedophilia by homosexual parents or partners vs. that by heterosexual parents. The numbers are not in the same ballpark.
April 38 08.14.08 at 12:39 pm
Someone up this thread asked about the relative merits of adoptive parents vs. bio. Having made a claim above that suggests there is no problem, let me edit myself. You may want to go to this link, http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118740260/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0, to read this report.
It is not all positive. Adoptive parents apparently abuse children significantly more than biological parents do. No, we know many of them are fantastic. We are talking about averages.
marttie 08.15.08 at 6:39 pm
My opinion is that the bio parents love their children more because they sacrificed for them. They had to just to give birth to a child. If adoptive Parents willingly give for the child, they develop the same kind of love for them. and I mean not just money. Money and things mean nothing compared to your time and understanding.
Joey 08.16.08 at 2:37 am
There’s the instinctual, genetic, aspect that shouldn’t be discounted. I think generally biological parents have an instinctual motivation to see to it that their biological offspring succeed. At the subconscious level it’s got to be about the preservation of ones genes, or else the human race would have died out a long time ago. This might help to explain the higher rates of abuse from adoptive/step/foster parents over biological parents.
sage 08.16.08 at 11:11 am
Add to this the old adage, “blood is thicker than water.” When one is pacing the floor, either with a collicky infant, or waiting for an errant teen to walk through the door, it is much harder to view that individual as some sort of enemy when they are your own flesh and blood. We still need adoptive parents, but they should be chosen with the interests of the child in mind, not the other way around. Certainly not to fulfill a political agenda. Children are not a commodity.
JMR 08.17.08 at 12:02 pm
I’ll go out on limb here and forecast that Prop 8 will pass, more ever, also, I’m planning on voting on it.
Chino Blanco 08.18.08 at 4:35 am
Has anyone considered the pain this misguided effort is causing the parents of gay children? Or the pain it causes gay children themselves?
Prop 8 is a waste of time that is causing unnecessary hurt to families with gay members.
April 38 08.18.08 at 9:52 am
Dear Chinco: Read, or re-read the statistics on what happens to children in gay families. That is there if Prop 8 doesn’t pass, and in increasing numbers.
Whatever pain is there is not caused by Prop 8; it is caused by parents — gay or heterosexual — who put children’s priorities and needs second in line behind their own self-serving wants. It is their life styles that causes the problems, not those who want to protect the institution of marriage — specifically for the welfare of America’s children. Again, read up, in well-documented sources, on what happens to children in non-traditional families.
If she really cares about her son, Rosie can forego having another mommie.
April 38 08.18.08 at 9:53 am
Sorry, it is their life styles that CAUSE the problems. Verb agreement, argh!
Chino Blanco 08.18.08 at 9:58 pm
Sorry, but I think that’s a load of election-year hype. You cite a bunch of folks in your post that have made an industry out of crying wolf about gay marriage.
I’ll cite here some folks who I trust more than outfits like the Family Research Council:
Senator Barry Goldwater:
The founder of the conservative wing of the Republican Party and nominee for President in 1964 was very outspoken on civil rights. He stated, “To see the party that fought communism and big government now fighting the gays, well, that’s just plain dumb.”
Conservative activist Ward Connerly:
“For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn’t about civil rights is sadly mistaken. If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people.”
Oregon Republican (and Mormon) Sen. Gordon Smith:
“Part of what I fear, as you start defining marriage — we have a long history of doing that in this country, and my Mormon pioneer ancestors were the victims of that. They were literally driven from the United States in the dead of winter for following their religious beliefs. I don’t want that coming back, but there are some on the front pages of your newspapers who are trying to now.”
This is about affording the same dignity and equality before the law that all us straight married w/ kids (like me) take for granted.
Sage 08.18.08 at 10:45 pm
I find it hard to believe that Ward Connerly, an eminently reasonable, responsible and logical man, would argue for a minority imposing its will on the majority, as the quote above implies. The illogic of that beggars the imagination. The majority (61%) in California spoke eight years ago on this very measure. Connerly would hardly suggest that a legitimate majority vote be discarded. I’d like to see the full context and source of this alleged quote.
And Gordon Smith cannot be comparing Proposition 8 to the Mormons being driven out of Illinois. No one is driving anyone out from anywhere. I imagine there was more to what he said, too.
The gay community are not under attack, as suggested above. It is just the reverse. The traditional family is under attack, and with Prop 8, it is defending itself and the children of the nation. Children should not be used as political pawns for political ends. They need traditional families, and the children of today and tomorrow need 8 to pass.
Chino Blanco 08.19.08 at 12:13 am
You can watch and listen to Gordon Smith’s comments for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiab0khdOcQ
Uh, Sage, gay Americans pay taxes but don’t have the same right to marry as you do. We founded this country in protest against taxation without representation. How well are gay Americans’ interests being served by a government that takes their taxes but won’t issue them a marriage license?
Chino Blanco 08.19.08 at 12:16 am
Oh, sorry, forgot to give you the source for the Ward Connerly quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly
On that page, you’ll need to scroll down to the header that’s titled:
Support of same-sex marriage
Cheers.
Johannes Steiner 08.19.08 at 9:25 am
Chino Blanco,
What exactly is a “right to marry”? Having your marriage recognized by the state is not a right.
The state views marriage between a man and a woman as something that was conducive to the welfare of the state, and that ought to have a binding legal significance. It therefore gave it special status, or a marriage license. It did not however, deem a homosexual relationship as conducive to the good of the society, and so it didn’t give that relationship any special status. No one is trying to forbid them from cohabitation.
To do THAT would be a breach of “rights”. There is no right that I know of that entails people to be married who please.
Please demonstrate a “right to marry” to me, otherwise I will assume, though I could be doing so in error, that no such right exists.
Sage 08.19.08 at 10:37 am
A little history. The term “taxation without representation” originates with the original colonies and England’s denial of elected representation of the colonists in Parliament. Representation is all about voting, and the citizens of California voted to protect traditional marriage. By a substantial 61%.
It is therefore you who would deny THEM, the majority of Californians, representation. They, the clear majority of voters, would be taxed to support the outcomes of legalizing gay marriage, without representation.
Those outcomes, if 8 does not pass — just in terms of dollars, will include lawsuit after lawsuit, as the left picks away at freedom of religion in attempts to force its gay agenda on pastors, churches, religious organizations, private schools and other charitable groups. We’ll see forced sensitivity training and fines, as has already happened in Canada, imposed on ministers or priests who follow their conscience and religious principles and refuse to marry gays, and against groups like the Boy Scouts as its leadership refuses to provide gays access to the boys.
All the rights really necessary to gays are already in place. Rights of inheritance, visitation, financial protection for cohabiting partners, equal to that of spouses, are on the books. No one wants to take that away. This effort to muddle the understanding of marriage is intended to destroy the traditional family.
Chino Blanco 08.19.08 at 10:39 am
We founded this country in protest against taxation without representation. How well are gay Americans’ interests being served by a government that takes their taxes but won’t issue them a marriage license?
Oh, and Sage, the Ward Connerly quote can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly
Chino Blanco 08.19.08 at 10:41 am
Wow, you know the hearts and intentions of gay folks who simply want to get married? Maybe they just want to receive the same benefits of marriage that the rest of us enjoy.
Johannes Steiner 08.19.08 at 10:50 am
This is NOT a taxation without representation issue. Are you familiar with what that means? REPRESENTATION not MARRIAGE LICENSE. I guess that might be part of your confusion.
Gays have equal representation with the rest of us. No one is discounting their votes. They just don’t get marriage, because a homosexual relationship is not on that qualifies for marriage.
Sage 08.19.08 at 10:57 am
I just read your quote from Gordon Smith. As I expected, you have taken his words out of context. If you hear the entire passage, he says — referring to either legalizing or NOT legalizing gay marriage — specifically that “if states want to democratically go about that, that’s what they should do.” That decision, as Gordon Smith describes it on the YouTube clip, is up to the voters of each state. Californians already did just that.
They refused, by a clear majority, to legalize gay marriage. Earlier this year, California judges, by a narrow 4-3 decision, spat on the decision of the majority. Prop 8 is the voters’ response to the Court’s denial of their right to vote on this issue.
Gordon Smith was describing this as a state’s rights issue, which it properly is — and thereby explaining why he did not want it to be a federal issue.
Sage 08.19.08 at 11:15 am
Chino: You are right about your quote from Ward Connerly, but not in describing him as a “conservative activist.”
He describes himself as a “Republican with a libertarian philosophy.” As most of us know, many libertarians have views that moral conservatives do not.
This position, which apparently was taken by Ward Connerly, says more about him than it does about the merits of Proposition 8. It will change the views that many conservatives have of him.
Cosmo 10.23.08 at 6:05 pm
“Has anyone considered the pain this misguided effort is causing the parents of gay children? Or the pain it causes gay children themselves?”
Notice that even in writing Chino Blanco puts the adults first? The children were an afterthought in the comment.
Elisabeth 11.11.08 at 12:59 pm
I would like to say that this article was truly unnerving. The idea that children growing up in a home with two people of the same gender are negatively affected is disgusting. Think about this: I have a daughter. I was engaged to her father. He threw me threw a wall when she was very young. Now I live with my mother. My daughter has spent the first year of her life in a home with two women. Anyone who meets her would insist that she is the happiest baby they have ever seen. She is not spoiled and she understands unconditional love. How is this different from gay marriage and raising children? And where does that source get off saying that straight marriages have less infidelity. That is simply ridiculous. Its just that straight people talk about it less and would admit to it less. Think also about this: I grew up in a home with my dad and my mother. He worked a lot and I was babysat by their two friends who were a lesbian couple. They were two of the nicest women I have ever known and they were more in love than any straight couple Ive ever met. Two years later, it was my father who punched me when I was still a child. Straight man, straight family. Two parents. And violence. Ive known plenty of people who grew up in same sex homes. They are no different than anyone else; except maybe they understand more about the world and have more of an open mind.
This whole argument is extremely insulting and, by the way, makes a lot of people look like ignorant asses. Stop talking theory and listening to studies that were conducted by ignorant asses and look at the people around.
We all know that Prop 8 passed. But that was due to a large campaign of lies about the school system. I, myself, had to ask many a school board to find out that these statements about teaching gay marriage in schools were lies. Obviously, the United States is not yet ready for gay marriage to be legalized. But I encourage those who are against it to take another look at the true, day to day reality of it. These aren’t desperate, selfish people who want to fulfill their selfish desires. These are people who have a lot of love to give and who are willing to raise children the best way possible. That is more than can be said for a lot of straight people who are allowed to have children.
April 38 11.11.08 at 3:13 pm
I’m sorry your experiences were difficult as a child, Elisabeth. And I am glad for you that you had good experiences with your lesbian babysitters. That’s wonderful.
But your experiences are anecdotal, not statistical. In other words, your experiences were exceptions to the statistical averages.
The best documented, scholarly studies show just the opposite. I do not have time or space here to go into that in detail, but the facts remain.
Lies WERE told about the school system, but unfortunately, they were told by the No on 8 group, particularly by Jack O’Connell, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He misled many voters who did not or could not ferret out the truth of the story. See commentary below by Mike Spence, a member of the West Covina School Board. My sister also served for eight years as a member of a northern California school board; she confirms Mike Spence’s report as accurate.
He writes: “If Proposition 8 fails, my school district will teach gay marriage and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell knows it!
“Of course, school board members like me, some teachers, and some parents will resist this type of instruction. But like the Borg in the Star Trek Series, the law, education code, judges and pro-gay marriage groups will eventually force their “tolerant” view of gay marriage on all children in public schools.
“This is how it will work in California public schools:
“Education Code section 51933 makes it clear that schools that teach “comprehensive sex education” have to teach, “respect for marriage and committed relationships”. ***This is something no school district can get around.**
“It is the choice of school districts whether or not they teach sex education. This is why the Anti- Proposition 8 campaign and Jack O’Connell say there is no requirement to teach about marriage.
What Jack O’Connell knows but doesn’t say is that 96% of school districts teach comprehensive sex education. Those numbers are from O’Connell’s California Department of Education. **96% must teach respect for marriage. **” [However marriage is defined by law.]
The violent reactions of the NO on 8 supporters are, as Kurt points out, completely out of proportion — if they are merely about the right to use a word. No actual rights have been lost for same sex couples by the passage of 8; so the objective is far broader than they have acknowledged. The object of their efforts has to do with far more than mere vocabulary.
Kurt Schulzke 11.13.08 at 7:47 am
Elisabeth –
You wrote: “The idea that children growing up in a home with two people of the same gender are negatively affected is disgusting.” You also resort twice to calling names in an apparent effort to discredit objective data supporting the assertion. Why do you find it necessary to do so?
The article cites several scholarly studies that indicate that children need mother and father. The nicest, kindest female pair can never completely fill a child’s developmental needs quite like a father and mother. You, too, needed a mother and father — one who was not abusive. This is not to say that every child will have both, only that it would be ideal that they do.